SEATTLE MAYOR’S GUN CONTROL PLAN RIGHT OUT OF CEASEFIRE’S PLAYBOOK, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ gun control agenda, announced at a Tuesday press conference, could have been written by Washington CeaseFire – a small but vocal extremist gun control organization – and “probably was,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

“The proposals unveiled by Mayor Nickels,” said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, “are nearly identical to the wish list detailed by CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli on the Op-Ed page of the Seattle Times on April 20. It appears that a special interest group is pulling the mayor’s strings because he is mouthing every one of their demands.

“Mayor Nickels wants to close a mythical gun show loophole,” he noted, “even though Justice Department data has shown that less than one percent of violent armed felons obtained their guns from gun shows.

“He complained that our laws are designed to punish criminals after they commit crimes,” Waldron said. “Does he want to punish law-abiding citizens before crimes are committed? That’s prior restraint and it is unconscionable.

“The mayor wants a ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ despite data that shows such firearms are not involved in that much crime,” Waldron continued. “There never really was a federal ban. Those firearms were legally owned thoughout the ten-year life of the federal law, and predictions that the streets would be flooded with those guns after the federal law expired in 2004 have not come true. Yet, CeaseFire also put that high on its list of priorities.

“He wants mandatory trigger locks,” Waldron added, “which is superfluous because virtually all new firearms sold today come with locking devices, and locks are also being given away free by firearms groups and the National Shooting Sports Foundation in cooperation with participating local law enforcement agencies. Trigger locks were another of Fascitelli’s April 20 demands, yet there is no evidence that trigger locks have ever prevented a violent crime, a gun theft, or a tragic accidental shooting.

“None of these proposals from the mayor or CeaseFire would have had any impact on any of the shootings that have occurred in Seattle during the past several weeks, and they know it,” Waldron said. “The mayor is grandstanding. He knows there really is no way to prevent determined criminals from committing crimes, but guns are an easy target for scorn, and the mayor wants a headline.”